Striped Socks and Starbucks

Or, alliteration is fun. Okay, I digress.

The other day, I asked Miss M. what she'd like to get Daddy for Christmas. She said "striped socks". Where that came from, I don't know. We're not a household of patterned socks; mine are usually black or white though I do have a few patterned ones, W's are usually black or another dark solid color, Miss M's are bold and pastel solid colors. So this afternoon, we walked into town to find some striped socks. Sure enough, at the somewhat twee clothing store in town, we found some. She picked the color, I paid, we left.

For further amusement, we went to Starbuck's for hot chocolate. Generally, I think Starbuck's is the evil empire. My pet peeve is that if you ask for a cup of coffee with milk - i.e. not a fancy latte or some such, just a plain old coffee with milk - You Have To Put The Milk In Yourself. I'm sorry, but that's not service. If you go in there with a little kid and a handful of shopping bags and an umbrella and and and...you can't do it. They should put the milk in your damned coffee.

Anyway, back to this afternoon: I asked the cashier for a small hot chocolate with a spare cup - figuring that I could split it and add a little milk to one to cool it down for Miss M. The cashier said, "we can put it in two cups for you". Okay. So we go to the end of the counter to wait for the cups, and the coffee maker lady (I can't bring myself to say "barista") hands over two full cups. Full. She didn't make one hot chocolate and pour half into a second cup - she gave us two. For the price of one. I was strangely moved by this - who'd have thought that Starbuck's was capable of such generosity?